


Experiment

by Just_A_Simple_Writer



Series: Whumptober2020 [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Creature Fic, Fluff, Halloween, Light Angst, M/M, Whumptober 2020, hes just a regular creeture, the fears still exist but michael isn't the distortion in this au, you'll be pleased to know we're back to fluff again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Just_A_Simple_Writer/pseuds/Just_A_Simple_Writer
Summary: Whumptober 2020 Day Thirty One - ExperimentHalloween fic!!Gerry isn’t a stupid man, and he’s seen a lot of monsters in his eighteen years. He knows that a door this heavy, in tunnels this deep, will have nothing good behind it.But he’s also a teenager, and sometimes curiosity wins out over common sense.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Series: Whumptober2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993570
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> this is mostly halloween fluff im not gonna lie to you

Breaking into an abandoned (and supposedly haunted) building on Halloween probably isn’t the _brightest_ idea Gerry’s every had, but honestly he’s in a bad mood, and at least if his mother asks he can lie and tell her that he thought _maybe_ the rumours came from one of her stupid books.

Honestly, though, he just wants to do something vaguely spooky for tonight, even if it’s by himself.

Halloween is overrated, really, especially since he knows there are _real_ monsters out there, but a small, childish part of him wants to dress up in a bad vampire costume and … carve a pumpkin or something stupid like that.

It’s not that he’d even want to do something like that under ordinary circumstances, but it’s the fact that he’s not allowed that _really_ pisses him off.

_It’s a waste of time, Gerard_ , his mother tells him, every year, _I won’t have this ridiculous paraphernalia in my house_.

And that’s been it. Every year. No trick-or-treating, no pumpkins, no Halloween parties, and now he’s eighteen he feels like he’s probably a bit old to ever go back and try to catch up on all the things that he missed out on.

Which is what brings him here. It’s not exactly a traditional celebration, but he’s not exactly a traditional _person_ , and at least it’s something, right?

He’d thought there would be more people out here tonight, but maybe it’s too early, everyone else out at parties and the like, and when he climbs over the barbed wire fence and into the condemned area there doesn’t seem to be anyone else around.

He tells himself he’s not disappointed.

Still, it’s a cool autumn evening and it’s rather nice as he heads across the crunchy leaves and towards the sagging building.

He’s been in a lot of condemned and collapsing buildings before, but never just for the fun of it. He doesn’t have a deadline, or a monster chasing him through the hallways. It’s just him and the wind whistling through the broken windows.

It’s nice.

Some of the anger he’d been feeling earlier in the evening has seeped out of him, and he finds himself humming as he climbs through an already-smashed window and into the building.

There’s graffiti on the wall opposite, so he’s clearly not the first person in here, but he’d never expected to be. He leaves the room and starts walking down the first hallway he sees, deeper into the abandoned building.

He doesn’t trust the stairs, when he finds them. They look as though they’re only a few minutes from collapsing, and the last thing he wants is to end tonight in A&E because he fell through the floor and broke his leg. That would really suck ass.

So he ignores the stairs and stays on the ground floor, where there’s less chance of him falling through the floor.

‘Less chance,’ as it turns out, doesn’t mean ‘no chance,’ a fact that Gerry discovers very unexpectedly when the seemingly solid floor beneath him gives out, sending him tumbling down into a basement which he hadn’t even known was there.

It’s not exactly ideal, but he doesn’t injure himself, past a few scrapes and bruised pride, so he just stands up and brushes himself off, looking around.

It’s very dark, which isn’t exactly unexpected, given as it’s a basement, but it does mean that Gerry has to pull out the torch that he hadn’t needed to use in the first floor of the house.

The beam lights up a small, dirty room and a heavy metal door that’s pushed a little ajar. Gerry tips the torch up for a moment, looking up at the hole he fell through, but there’s no chance of him getting out of there, so he heads towards the door instead. Hopefully the staircase won’t be too far away.

The corridor beyond the door is far longer than he’d expected, and for a moment he hesitates, wondering if it would be easier to try and build some sort of scaffolding to get out of the hole.

No. It wouldn’t be.

He starts walking, shining the beam at each of the doors he walks past. Most of them are heavy metal, and the ones he tries seem to be locked. Those which aren’t just lead into small, dusty rooms, empty of anything apart from decaying furniture. No stairs, no apparent way out.

What he’s really looking for is some sort of signposting, perhaps pointing him towards an exit.

As he walks he slowly begins to realise that something’s off. Something just doesn’t feel right.

It takes him a full five minutes to realise what it is.

Up in the main part of the building there had been graffiti on every wall, the floor littered with cigarette ends, but down here there’s none of that. Like no one else has been down here before.

The floor is covered with a thick layer of dust, too, and his footprints are the only ones down here. It seems as though this place has been closed off for a very, very long time.

That doesn’t bode well for him finding a staircase, but it’s only been a few minutes, and he’s still hopeful.

When he does finally find a staircase he starts to worry, because it’s leading down instead of up, and he really doesn’t want to go down there, but what other option does he have? It seems to be the only way to go.

On further inspection there _does_ seem to be a staircase leading up, or what remains of one, but it’s been blocked off with a huge slab of concrete, and Gerry has absolutely no way of getting through there.

Down it is, then.

The stairs seem solid as he starts down them, hewn out of stone, but that doesn’t mean he trusts them. They’re too narrow, and he nearly falls on more than one occasion.

The hallway he finds at the bottom of the staircase seems more like a cave or a mineshaft than a real hallway. It’s too uneven, and he’s walking over stone, not concrete.

This may have been a mistake, but something in him is curious, almost excited, and he keeps pressing forward, into the darkness.

It’s dark, but for now he’s not really worried about it. There are none of the tell-tale signs of the Dark, and his torch is still bright. Besides, the fears need people to fear them, and its unlikely that any of them would set up shop in these clearly abandoned tunnels. The only thing he’s really in danger from is getting lost and dying of starvation.

Which won’t be pleasant either, but at least he has plenty of time before that happens.

The tunnels seem to be sloping down, which really doesn’t bode well for there being a convenient exit down here, but he keeps walking, because why not? Maybe he’ll at least find something interesting before he’s forced to turn back and try and get out of here the way he came in.

There doesn’t seem to be anything. Just seemingly endless tunnels, hewn out of the rock, and the occasional empty room.

And then a door, heavy iron, almost like a prison cell.

Gerry isn’t a stupid man, and he’s seen a lot of monsters in his eighteen years. He knows that a door this heavy, in tunnels this deep, will have nothing good behind it.

But he’s also a teenager, and sometimes curiosity wins out over common sense.

The door isn’t locked, but it has a heavy deadbolt across it, and Gerry slowly pulls it open. It’s very rusty, and takes some tugging, but eventually it slides back and he can pull the door open to see what’s behind it.

It’s not an exit, but he hadn’t really expected it to be.

He doesn’t realise exactly what it _is_ that the beam of his torch has caught upon until it moves, and he finds himself staring into yellow eyes.

It’s a person, or something almost like a person. Maybe if Gerry hadn’t met so many monsters he would think it _was_ a person.

There’s a silence while they stare at each other, and then its lips curl upwards into a smile.

“Hello.”

Gerry swallows, eyeing its teeth. “Hello.”

It pulls itself to its feet, and Gerry realises that it’s a good few inches taller than him, and he’s really not comfortable with that. It looks dangerous, although there’s something in its eyes that stops Gerry from backing out and locking the door again.

“What are you?” he asks, instead.

It tips its head almost thoughtfully. “I’m not sure.”

Its voice is grating, as though it’s been a long time since it’s spoken, and Gerry feels almost sorry for it.

“A failed experiment, perhaps.”

“Do you have a name?” Gerry asks, watching as it tries to stretch up to its full height and hits its head on the ceiling.

“I had one,” it says, face twisting into something like confusion. “Once.”

“What was it?”

“Michael.”

Gerry thinks about that for a moment, fingers tapping against his leg. “Can I call you that?”

“I suppose. Do _you_ have a name?”

“Yes. I’m Gerry.”

It’s not his full name, but its what he generally calls himself, and what he would like his friend to call him. If he had friends.

This … person isn’t exactly a friend, but Gerry doesn’t think it’s an enemy either.

Maybe it’s an oversight on his part, and it’s going to get him killed, but he doesn’t think so.

“Gerry,” Michael says, thoughtfully, and Gerry can’t deny the little thrill it sends down his back. “I suppose I should thank you. I’ve been here an awfully long time, you know.”

“How long?”

Michael shrugs. The movement looks odd on its too-long, somewhat mismatched limbs, but it’s oddly endearing.

“Right,” Gerry says, not sure what to do now. “I suppose you want to get out?”

Michael smiles, almost wistfully. “That would be nice. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the moon.”

Something about the way it says it pulls at Gerry’s heart a little more than it should.

“Come on,” he says, pushing the door further open and gesturing for it to follow him. “I suppose you can help me get out of here.”

Michael laughs softly, and Gerry watches it duck through the doorway. “We’re both trapped down here, then?”

“I know the way out,” Gerry says. “I just can’t get out on my own.”

“It’s a good thing you found me,” Michael says, and Gerry nods, though he has no idea if Michael can see him with the torch trained in front of him, on the passage he came down.

It feels like getting out takes a lot less time than getting in did, though perhaps that’s just because Gerry’s so distracted with Michael’s careful footsteps following him down the tunnel and up the hewn stairs.

The roof is probably too low for it to stand comfortably, but there’s nothing Gerry can do about that right now. It will just have to wait until they get back to the room Gerry fell into.

“This is how I got in,” Gerry tells it, when they’re finally back, and watches, fascinated, as it unravels itself to stand up to its full height, head almost at the level of the hole.

It’s not listening to him, tipping its head up to look out at the building instead, and Gerry wonders if it can see the sky from the angle it’s standing at.

“Michael?” he says, softly, and it turns to look at him. Its eyes are bright, almost joyful.

“Thank you,” it murmurs, smiling.

Gerry nods, suddenly feeling a little awkward. “Thank me by getting us out of here,” he suggests, looking away and up at the edge of the hole instead.

“Of course,” it says, suddenly amused, and he watches as it pulls itself out like a spider, all long limbs and pale skin. It doesn’t move like a human, but it seems so graceful.

It stops once it’s at the top and extends a hand down to Gerry. He eyes it for a moment, a little hesitant.

“Not sure how you’re planning on getting me out,” he says. “I’m heavier than I look.”

Michael laughs softly. “I can do it.”

It’s a little harder than Gerry suspects Michael thought it would be, but between them they manage to get Gerry out of the hole and back onto the solid floor of the building.

Michael’s skin is very cold, almost corpse-like, but its softer than Gerry had been expecting, and he finds himself not wanting to let go, as if he could somehow warm it up.

Still, he does let go, flicking his torch off. The moon is full, and there’s more than enough light to see pouring in through the windows.

“Come on, Michael,” he says, smiling a little. “Let’s go outside.”

“Yes,” Michael says, eyes lighting up, and Gerry leads it out of the building, into the pale light of the moon.

It’s cold out here, and Gerry finds himself standing a little closer to Michael than he was before. It doesn’t give off any heat, of course, but the principal is the same.

Michael seems so amazed, staring up at the stars, and Gerry wonders how long its been trapped in the dark. Probably too long.

It sits on the ground and stares upwards, and Gerry sits next to it, watching curiously. “You like the stars?”

“Yes,” it breathes and for a moment it glances down at him.

Gerry doesn’t say anything, just hums quietly and looks up as well, feeling oddly content.

This Halloween hasn’t exactly gone as planned, but he thinks he’s pleased with the direction it’s taken. Especially since his mother wouldn’t be, if she knew.

Some small part of him feels like he should be a little more panicked over the whole thing, but he ignores that part. He’s not scared of Michael, not really, and Halloween seems like as good a time as any for something so … out of the ordinary to happen.

And this _is_ out of the ordinary, even for him, who’s ordinary isn’t exactly, well, _ordinary_.

He still has questions, of course, but they can wait. For now he just sits with Michael and watches the stars.

It’s a lovely evening.

**Author's Note:**

> also posted on my [tumblr](https://jaysworlds.tumblr.com/) as part of my whumptober project


End file.
